My friend, Brian Wall informs me, to my embarrassment, that I refer to him as"Bill Wall" on the video. This is obviously incorrect, though they are both US masters who have published books on unusual openings.

The quickest win with the Mousetrap Gambit yet. Victory was achieved via exploiting the classic resultant light square weaknesses in the black position and my opponent forgetting to calculate at some point

My friend, Brian Wall informs me, to my embarrassment, that I refer to him as"Bill Wall" on the video. This is obviously incorrect, though they are both US masters who have published books on unusual openings.

First, it was great to hear about Basman again, I hadn't thought of him for many a year! The guy was a true eccentric (well, still is, I think he's still with us!). Famous mostly for opening with rook pawns but also for things like not wearing socks (am I imagining that? it could have been another eccentric chess player, there's no shortage!). I had the privilege of playing him once in a rapid event they used to hold every month in London. I've got this memory of sitting down playing 1e4 knowing full well that I was going to get hit with 1 ..h6 and 2..g5, whatever I did, because that's just what he was into at the time and he played it against everyone. It was a lot less amusing due to the fact that I knew I was going to get crushed however I replied Anyway since all this was around 1989 or something, my memory may not be completely reliable!

On this gambit, I can't for the life of me understand why people are playing ..f6. What's wrong with ..h6? Why voluntarily block up your kingside development, and moreover it's nice to get h7 for the bishop right?

Oh and one last thing, the fact that Schiller hates it is of course a strong recommendation as we all know

On this gambit, I can't for the life of me understand why people are playing ..f6. What's wrong with ..h6? Why voluntarily block up your kingside development, and moreover it's nice to get h7 for the bishop right?

Oh and one last thing, the fact that Schiller hates it is of course a strong recommendation as we all know

Thanks for the comments Adam. I would have been thrilled to be crushed by Basman (were those the Islington tournaments, by any chance?) I talked to him a couple of times on the phone and we exchanged emails but I never got to meet him. I believe he is still playing occasionally though these days he apparently likes c5 and f5 against everything with black

As for h6, I agree, it seems an eminently sensible move and I'm pretty sure I have some games and analysis from Buecker on this move. I should probably do a follow-up video on this line as listening to this old video, I am struck at how much frothy blather I managed to pad out the 30 mins with. These days, I prefer to get to point and include more information. I still think the line is interesting and as far as I know, there hasn't been a refutation yet, though I expect one someday.

Interesting line. Regardless of how sound it is, this video was instructive in that I learned a new type of gambit - or at least, a kind deflection gambit in a way I'd never seen before. Thanks for the idea! You can be sure now I'll use this idea loads of times in completely the wrong context and lose a load of games

f6 looks like a patzer move though, I'm suprised you saw it so often. Is there a particular reason that black plays like that? I mean, the white squared bishop may not be as good on h7 as f7, but that's a small price to pay for keeping the kingside free, and on h7 it hits the c2 pawn as well.

Looking at this line though, my assesment would be that it's dangerous for white. Surely if black plays h6, Bh7 and castles kingside then his apparant light squared weakness on the queenside doesn't count for much? And if white really wants to go for the attack he has to castle right into the semi-open c file, which is even more dangerous with a bishop on h7.

All in all I think it's an attractive looking line with the idea of trapping the bishop, but all I see is problems for white if black stays tight at the back and develops properly.

I'm working on a follow up video with ...h6 and I'll talk about that. Surprisingly, f6 is the most popular choice among both strong players (i.e. masters) and Houdini. h6 is the better move according to Buecker but White also seems to do quite well. As of a few years ago, when Buecker wrote his article on the gambit, 18 high level games had been played: 16 wins for white with 1 draw and 1 loss. Computers seem to think that White has full or close to full compensation after acceptance of the gambit. I originally thought that a direct refutation had to be in the offing but now after playing it some more and doing analysis with engines, I'm beginning to think that Black may need to decline this gambit. It's a likely to remain a sideline however since there are proven ways for White to demonstrate an advantage against Owen's Defense using traditional approaches. It's definitely a fun line to play- I'm just sorry more people don't play Owen's Defense.

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